People love chatting on WhatsApp with their favorite small businesses, but having to exchange multiple messages and photos to get product information is tedious. Today we are making it easier to learn about the products and services businesses offer with the introduction of catalogs in the WhatsApp Business app.

Catalogs are a mobile storefront for businesses to showcase and share their goods so people can easily browse and discover something they would like to buy. Previously businesses had to send product photos one at a time and repeatedly provide information — now customers can see their full catalog right within WhatsApp. This makes business owners look more professional and keeps customers engaged in the chat without having to visit a website.

Like Agradaya, a sustainable herbs and spices business in Indonesia. We gave the founder Andhika Mahardika early access to the catalog feature and he told us that it makes it easier for customers to learn about their products, know the prices and view the images of what they offer — which is essential for serving their customers better.

For each item in its catalog, a business can add information including price, description and product code. WhatsApp hosts these catalogs to save valuable storage space on the phones of both businesses and customers.

Creating a catalog with the WhatsApp Business app takes just a few simple steps. Watch this video to get started:

The catalog feature is available today to businesses using the WhatsApp Business app on both Android and iPhone in Brazil, Germany, India, Indonesia, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S. It will be rolling out around the world soon. We can’t wait to hear how catalogs are helping small businesses connect with their customers and grow.

Earlier this year, we rolled out Touch ID and Face ID for iPhone to provide an extra layer of security for WhatsApp users. Today we’re introducing similar authentication, allowing you to unlock the app with your fingerprint, on supported Android phones. To enable it, tap Settings > Account > Privacy > Fingerprint lock. Turn on Unlock with fingerprint, and confirm your fingerprint.

One of the most frequent requests we've heard from small business owners is they want to use the WhatsApp Business app on the device of their choice.

Now they can.

Today we're introducing the WhatsApp Business app for iOS. Like the Android version — which over the last year has been adopted by millions of businesses around the world — the WhatsApp Business app for iOS will be free to download from the Apple App Store and will include features to help small businesses and customers communicate. These include:

• Business Profile: Share useful information about your business such as a business description, email or store addresses, and website.
• Messaging Tools: Respond to customers easily with efficient messaging tools — quick replies to provide fast answers to frequently asked questions, greeting messages to introduce customers to your business and away messages to let them know when to expect a reply.
• WhatsApp Web: Chat from your desktop to manage conversations and send files to customers.

The WhatsApp Business app is available today and free to download from the App Store in Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, India, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S. The app will be rolling out around the world in the coming weeks.

Whether it's an online sweet shop in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil that closes 60 percent of its sales via WhatsApp Business or a cinnamon roll company in Tijuana, Mexico that credits WhatsApp Business for allowing it to open a second location, small business owners all over the world are using the app to grow. We're excited to bring the WhatsApp Business app to even more small businesses and hear new stories about how it's helping them succeed.

WhatsApp groups continue to connect family, friends, coworkers, classmates, and more. As people turn to groups for important conversations, users have asked for more control over their experience. Today, we're introducing a new privacy setting and invite system to help you decide who can add you to groups.

To enable it, go to Settings in your app, then tap Account > Privacy > Groups and select one of three options: “Everyone,” “My Contacts,” or “My Contacts Except.” “My Contacts” means only users you have in your address book can add you to groups and “My Contacts Except” provides additional control for who among your contacts can add you to a group.

In those cases, an admin who can’t add you to a group will be prompted to send a private invite through an individual chat, giving you the choice of joining the group. You'll have three days to accept the invite before it expires.

With these new features, users will have more control over the group messages they receive. These new privacy settings will begin rolling out to some users starting today and will be available worldwide in the coming days to those using the latest version of WhatsApp.

UPDATE: Based on feedback from users during our initial rollout, instead of the “Nobody” option we are now providing a “My Contacts Except” option. This allows you to choose to exclude specific contacts or “select all”. This update is rolling out to users around the world on the latest version of WhatsApp.

Last Updated: November 5, 2019

It’s been 10 years since we started WhatsApp! Over the past decade, we’ve heard from people across the globe who are using WhatsApp to stay in touch with their loved ones, connect with their communities, and build businesses. These stories continue to inspire us, and to celebrate this milestone, we’re looking back at some of our biggest moments over the years.

We’re excited to continue building features that make WhatsApp even more simple and reliable for everyone. Thank you to all of our users around the world for coming with us on this journey!

At WhatsApp, we care deeply about private messaging, and today we're excited to introduce Touch ID and Face ID on iPhone to help prevent someone from taking your phone and reading your messages.

To enable the iPhone feature in WhatsApp, tap Settings > Account > Privacy > Screen Lock and turn on Touch ID or Face ID. You have the option to select the amount of time before Touch ID or Face ID is prompted after WhatsApp is closed.

This feature is available on iPhone 5s or later and on iOS 9 and above starting today.

In January of last year we launched the WhatsApp Business app, and now there are more than five million businesses using it to support customers, grow their businesses and serve their communities all over the world. We're excited that we've helped millions of businesses grow. For example, in India, Bengaluru-based eyewear brand Glassic has told us that 30 percent of its new sales are generated through WhatsApp Business.

To help celebrate the first year of WhatsApp Business, we're announcing that some of our most popular features can now be used on WhatsApp web and desktop. These features include:

• Quick Replies: These are frequent messages to answer common questions. Simply press the “/” on your keyboard to select a quick reply and send.
• Labels: Organize your contacts or chats with labels, so you can easily find them again.
• Chat List Filtering: Easily manage your chats with filters to sort by unread messages, groups or broadcast lists.

Using these features on a computer helps businesses save time and get back to their customers quickly. We're excited to keep growing WhatsApp Business and introducing new features that make it easy for customers to find and engage with businesses that are important to them.

From emoji and camera features to Status and animated GIFs, we’re always looking to add new features that make communicating with friends and family on WhatsApp easy and fun. Today, we’re excited to introduce a new way for people to express themselves with stickers.

Whether with a smiling teacup or a crying broken heart, stickers help you share your feelings in a way that you can't always express with words. To start, we're launching sticker packs created by our designers at WhatsApp and a selection of stickers from other artists.

We've also added support for third-party sticker packs to allow designers and developers around the world to create stickers for WhatsApp. To do this, we've included a set of APIs and interfaces that allow you to build sticker apps that add stickers to WhatsApp on Android or iOS. You can publish your sticker app like any other app to the Google Play Store or Apple App Store, and users who download and install your app will be able to start sending those stickers right from within WhatsApp. You can learn more about creating your own sticker apps for WhatsApp here.

To use stickers in a chat, simply tap the new sticker button and select the sticker you want to share. You can add new sticker packs by tapping the plus icon.

Stickers will be available for Android and iPhone over the coming weeks. We hope you enjoy them!

For the first time, WhatsApp will be available for JioPhone across India. WhatsApp built a new version of its private messaging app for JioPhone, running the KaiOS operating system, to give people a simple, reliable, and secure way to communicate with friends and family.

The new app offers the best of WhatsApp including fast and reliable messaging and the ability to send photos and videos — all end-to-end encrypted. It's also easy to record and send voice messages with just couple taps on the keypad. To get started, JioPhone users only need to verify their phone number and then they can begin chatting with other WhatsApp users one-on-one or in groups.

WhatsApp is available in the JioPhone AppStore starting today. You can download WhatsApp on both the JioPhone and the JioPhone 2 by visiting the AppStore and clicking Download.

As we announced last year, WhatsApp is building new tools to help people and businesses communicate with each other. Since we launched the WhatsApp Business app people have told us that it's quicker and easier to chat with a business than making a call or sending an e-mail. Today we are expanding our support for businesses that need more powerful tools to communicate with their customers.

Here's how people can connect with a business:

• Request helpful information: When you need a shipping confirmation or boarding pass, you can give your mobile number to a business on their website, on their app, or in their store to send you information on WhatsApp.
• Start a conversation: You may see a click-to-chat button on a website or Facebook ad to quickly message a business.
• Get support: Some businesses may provide real-time support on WhatsApp to answer questions about their products or help you resolve an issue.

With this approach, you will continue to have full control over the messages you receive. Businesses will pay to send certain messages so they are selective and your chats don't get cluttered. In addition, messages will remain end-to-end encrypted and you can block any business with the tap of a button.

We will bring more businesses onto WhatsApp over a period of time. To do so, we will work directly with a few hundred businesses and a select number of companies that specialize in managing customer communications.

If you are interested in how a business can start using these new tools, you can learn more here. As always, we will be listening carefully to feedback as we go forward.